


Lovely, Dark and Deep

by winter156



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-12 05:27:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20558987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter156/pseuds/winter156
Summary: Hecate had left their vacation plans up to Ada.





	Lovely, Dark and Deep

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the first part to this some time ago for cassiopeiasara on tubmlr but never posted it here. I've sort of continued it and decided to put it up here as well. Just a note, I haven't watched past season 1 on the show, so I've just kind of wandered down my own mind for this. Enjoy!

Hecate had left their vacation plans up to Ada. She wanted her to feel completely in control and comfortable of wherever they ended up for the short break between terms.

It was a small concession to make to have Ada feel herself again. Capable and competent. Confident in her ability to be…simply be.

She had been fully prepared to endure any place Ada chose. She had expected a crowded, hot beach somewhere near the equator.

When they first arrived at the cottage deep in the dark woods of Germany, she had thought Ada had chosen the place for her. That she, perhaps, wanted to reconnect after a hectic term. That she wanted to talk and rediscover each other. That she wanted to mend shelved misunderstandings.

But two days in, Hecate knew Ada had chosen the seclusion of the woods to brood. She watched the shadowed figure against the window frame. She swallowed her sigh and turned in the bed, away from the window, away from Ada. It would do them no good if she were grumpy and morose along with Ada. She would worry about the aching sadness that had settled inside her chest after she slept.

But Hecate couldn’t find sleep. Her mind turned in and over on itself until the sting of tears clawed at her eyes. Ada had not touched her, had not looked at her, had barely spoken a word to her in two days.

For the first time in her remembrance, Hecate wished for the distraction of other people. She wished they were at a bright, sunny, crowded beach where she could hide in herself. Here in the seclusion and quietness of the woods, the distance that had crept up between them seemed inescapable.

“You’re crying.” The bed shifted with the weight of a body sitting. But there was no hand on Hecate’s arm. There was no warm reassurance. There was only a statement of fact and a turned back.

Hecate curled further into herself, shrinking her presence. If she feigned sleep, perhaps this could be avoided and the hole in her heart would stop getting bigger.

“I can feel you,” Ada sighed, tired, so tired, “your magic calls me when you’re in distress.” 

Hecate wiped at her face with the heel of her hand.

“Why are you crying?” The question was tentative but oblique in its delivery, accusatory almost. Certainly rhetorical, because Ada was anything but stupid, especially not concerning emotional things.

Silence stretched between them, dense and alive in the two feet between their turned backs.

“When did we get like this?” Hecate’s question was thick. It landed heavily against the stifling silence.

Another sigh bounced against the silence, this one defeated.

Hecate felt the bed shift again and then Ada’s back pressed against her own. The heat seeping into her body anchored her but also made the ache in chest sharp and hot.

“There’s darkness in me, Hecate.” A hand fumbling in the dark reached for hers; Hecate, full of love and so much wanting, laced their fingers together. “I want to protect you from it, keep your goodness and your soft heart away from it.”

Hecate wanted to protest and deny the words filling the silence with too many deep secrets. But, she knew Ada was right. She was always one choice away from being Agatha. (The terrible tragedy was, of course, that Agatha was always one choice away from being Ada.)

“You can’t, Ada,” Hecate’s voice trembled with the truth of her words, “not without shutting me out. I can survive your darkness. But, I can’t survive your silence and distance.”

Ada’s magic curled her distress at the words around Hecate’s abdomen. The cold, sickly tendril of anguish instinctively made Hecate squeeze the hand in hers. She imagined identical tears as her own were falling from Ada’s closed eyes. Silence swallowed the room again. But their hands stayed connected.

Tomorrow they would face all the things they had been avoiding until this moment. Tomorrow they would have long conversations and long silences. Tomorrow would be hard, and possibly full of hurt.

But, there would be a tomorrow.

And, tonight they were together, back to back, hands clasped, binding them in the firmness of who they were together.

* * *

Hecate wasn’t sure what woke her. She kept her eyes closed and listened; she allowed the quiet surroundings of the cottage to awaken her fully.

The first thing she noticed was the soft breathing on her neck. They had shifted in the night and were breast to breast, stomach to stomach, thigh to thigh. Hecate’s long form was held firmly against Ada by arms wrapped around her middle. It felt right to be pressed together.

A small, pained noise and hands gripping at her nightdress pulled all of her attention to Ada. Hecate rubbed circles into Ada’s back. “Ada,” she called softly, repeatedly, her hand shifting from back to shoulders to neck.

“Hecate.” Ada woke slowly, and then quickly. Her blue eyes were open and bright in the darkness surrounding them.

“Nightmare?” Hecate pressed a hand to Ada’s cheek.

Ada averted her eyes, hiding from Hecate’s gaze. “Memories.” The quiet stillness surrounding them seeped between the crevices between them.

Hecate wondered at that, at all she still didn’t know about Ada despite years of intimate friendship, years of marriage. The recently familiar pang of longing and hurt ached inside her chest. She opened her mouth to ask, but Ada’s lips covered the question. And her mind went blank because they hadn’t touched in two days, and they hadn’t touched like _this_—with this intent and purpose—in too long. Work, disaster after disaster, Agatha, Mildred, their tiredness, and a seemingly endless list of reasons had stopped them. Hecate wanted to ask, wanted to talk; she wanted to erase the emotional distance between them. But, she also burned at the touch.

Ada’s mouth was desperate and needy, her lips hard and insistent on Hecate’s.

Hecate opened to her because she had missed this closeness, this intimacy. They would get to the talking. They would resolve whatever the issue was that had raised a wall between them. But, that could wait. The press of desperate desire wrapped her mind and her body.

“Can I touch you, my darling?”

Hecate trembled at the question and the endearment pressed into her neck with a hot breath. In this they had never had any exaggerated sense of entitlement. They had always asked, always waited for consent to be given.

She took Ada’s hand and pressed it against her chest. The quiet, sure _yes _was swallowed in the whisper of magic that surrounded them when Ada banished their clothes.

Hecate sucked in a sharp breath at the press of flesh on flesh. It had been so long. Ada was soft and warm against her. She shuddered at the familiar way Ada touched her, practiced fingers leaving burning trails on her skin.

She opened to Ada, a sigh escaping her at the fullness and connectedness. Their magic flared around them as they moved. Hecate pressed hungry, desperate kisses to Ada’s lips. Her movements became jagged and she pulled Ada closer and deeper. She jerked sharply onto Ada’s hand, her breathing stuttered and stopped, her muted pleasure loud in the quite of the space around them.

Ada held her. Her fingers idly carding through dark hair.

For the first time in months, Hecate felt the warmth of their love fill her. They were going to work through this as they had worked through everything else they had faced in their many years together.

Hecate kissed her slowly, with all the love she felt for her. _Can I touch you_…her magic asked. The hesitation in Ada’s eyes gave her pause. “Trust me to love you,” Hecate whispered, vulnerable and open, her heart laid bare before the woman she loved.

_Yes _bounced in Hecate’s mind. “I do.”

* * *

“Are you sure it’s supposed to look like that?” Ada looked down into the black liquid.

Hecate watched Ada’s hands grip the cup, her shoulders tense, her whole demeanor coiled tightly. “I’m not asking this of you, Ada.” Hecate’s eyes were soft. “Talking will suffice.”

Ada shook her head. “It’s time I share this with you.”

“There are easier ways than sharing an intense telepathic and empathic connection.” Her hands fluttered aimlessly.

“We already share that,” Ada nodded, making her decision. She tipped the cup back and drank the contents, “this will only make things clearer to you.” She took a deep breath and gently took Hecate’s hand. “No more hiding myself from you.”

The cottage faded and a rush of images and emotions assaulted Hecate. She whirled through Ada’s childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, and the now. Their present. Ada’s memories of them. All the experiences and all the emotions of each significant moment in Ada’s life flashed in her mind. She felt it all: the happiness, the anguish, the contentment, the numbness, the pain, the anger, the disappointment, the fear, the love. Oh the intense love.

And always, in every moment: Agatha.

And, Hecate understood.

She saw.

She felt.

As surely as the fact that she shared a magical, mental, and emotional connection with Ada so did Agatha.

The world around her solidified. But it wasn’t the cottage that appeared around her, instead Hecate found herself in an unfamiliar sitting room with a familiar face staring at her from across the room. A cruel smile overtook that face and the blue eyes were sharp and cold.

Ada’s hand tightened around hers.

“Oh my, dear sister,” Agatha’s saccharine voice mocked as she approached them, “what treat have you brought me?”

Again, so soon whispered at the periphery of Hecate’s mind. Her stomach knotted uncomfortably when she realized the meaning of Agatha’s words. Her mouth set in displeasure and her eyes narrowed.

Ada stepped in front of Hecate. “Agatha,” her voice warned.

The sound of Agatha’s laughter grated Hecate’s ears. It reverberated through all the memories she had experienced, bouncing loudly through her mind.

“There’s no mummy or daddy here for you to turn to, Ada,” the cruel smile darkened, “whatever will you do when I break your most favorite toy?” She circled them.

Both Ada and Hecate turned with her. Hecate could feel the prickle of Ada’s displeasure and anger. She knew Agatha could feel it too.

“Our little secret is out, sister.” Agatha stopped abruptly, giddy at her sister’s displeasure. “How does that make you feel, dear Hecate?” She leered before quickly signing and chanting the words to a spell.

Hecate could feel the draw and pull of Agatha’s magic; it was so similar, so familiar yet simultaneously so foreign, so strange. She also immediately felt Ada’s magic, intimately familiar.

“Enough, Agatha!” Ada’s voice boomed in the space, loud in all their minds.

Agatha smirked. “Does it bother you that she’s as much mine as she is yours?”

Hecate stepped forward, hands fisted, eyes sharp. “I do not belong to you.” She slipped her hand into Ada’s and concentrated on countering the effects of the potion.

Agatha’s laughter followed them back to the cottage.

They stood surrounded by bright morning light and the chirping of birds. Ada moved first, busying herself with making tea.

“Ada,” Hecate placed her hands on her shoulders, tentatively, “it’s not uncommon for magical twins to share the same source of magic.” She spoke softly, not sure how much of Ada’s upset was due to the new knowledge she possessed. “I have always been aware of the possibility.”

“I thought I had severed our connection long ago,” Ada sighed and turned into Hecate’s arms. Hecate relaxed, loosening some of the tension in her gaunt frame. “Agatha let me believe…” She shook her head. “I should have said something to you. I should have…”

Hecate rocked them unconsciously, the dread she’d been holding for months slowly loosened its grip on her chest. This was familiar. This was Agatha being Agatha; her they could face together. “You bound her magic. You couldn’t have known.”

Ada sighed. “Agatha got creative when I bound her. She’s has been using the connection we’ve always shared to use my magic. It’s how she discovered that you and I are bound. It’s how she’s seen us…” She trailed off, but Hecate understood. She had experienced what Agatha was privy to in Ada’s mind.

“Agatha’s deceits and choices are not yours to take responsibility for,” there was no judgement. “Is this why you’ve pulled away the last few months?” Hecate had to be sure. There had been too many things left unsaid between them.

“What would you have me do?” Ada gripped Hecate tightly. “I refuse to share you.”

“Good.” Hecate watched the bright scenery outside the little window in the kitchen and the crushing weight that had been pressed on her heart eased and lightened. She shifted, lifting Ada’s chin so their eyes locked. “I choose you, Ada.” She was unaccustomed to being the one to initiate physical affection between them but it came easily, as easily as her love for Ada. She kissed her softly. “That doesn’t make me Agatha’s by association. Nor does it make you culpable.”

Ada opened her mouth to protest but Hecate traced her thumb over her bottom lip.

“This isn’t your doing, Ada.” In this Hecate was certain. “Agatha has no right to use you as she has and then make you feel that it’s your fault.”

Ada sighed and closed her eyes. “I could do more to stop her.”

“What more could you possibly do?” Anger at the situation bubbled inside Hecate. “Short of—” Her words stopped abruptly and a different type of dread settled cold and heavy in her stomach.

A sad, hollow smile marred Ada’s face. “Yes,” she nodded slowly, “binding my power—”

“No,” Hecate interrupted, hands gripping Ada, “no.” She shook her head. “It would change everything.”

Ada nodded, her face set with the same sad smile, her eyes shiny.

“No, Ada.” Hecate pulled Ada to her, thoughts muddled and slow. “There has to be another way.”

“Perhaps,” Ada agreed easily, “either way, we will figure this out together.”

Hecate held on tightly. “Together,” she promised.


End file.
